


Why Stingray

by thunderbird_dragon



Category: Stingray (UK TV), Thunderbirds, thunderbirds are go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 11:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20025382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderbird_dragon/pseuds/thunderbird_dragon
Summary: A difficult early rescue for a fourteen-year-old Gordon is made more difficult when his father sees what he's up to - but Gordon stands firm, he's on a mission to save the victims and his father is just going to have to deal with it!





	Why Stingray

**Author's Note:**

> We all went 'ahh!' when we saw the Stingray in the tank that heads up the new Thunderbird Four/Gordon Tracy launch sequence and we all thought there must be a reason, so...
> 
> *For Stingray fans who wonder why I tagged Stingray - the new Thunderbirds are Go! series pays homage to Stingray several times, in the very first episode as Alan restores satellite broadcasts of John's favourite series - "Stingray", and now more recently as part of the launch sequence to Thunderbird Four, where a toy Stingray lives happily in the fish tank.

This rescue was tricky.  
Not only was the space tight and the victims skittish with fear, there was also the risk of being discovered.  
So he moved quickly - after all, underwater rescues were going to be his speciality.  
Gordon leaned in further, trying so hard to reach the last one, his head and shoulders already fully submerged without a rebreather or suit, but he still reached in further.  
“ G O R D O N ! ”  
He heard the shout reverberate through glass and water alike, then saw the movement - his concentration suddenly broken, his foot slipped on the step ladder and he slid, with a splash, into the water.  
Surfacing with a choking splutter, he flicked his hair back and faced his father!  
“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Jeff, now at the top of the steps, pulled his second youngest out of the fish tank. “Damn it all Gordon, we've only just finished the installation!” Jeff's hand broadly swept over Gordon's new route to Thunderbird Four and the curved fish tank that headed up its camouflage.  
But to his surprise, standing safely now in front of the tank, Gordon didn't try to hide the water-filled loop bag with 19 of the 20 fish that his father had chosen to live in the tank. Instead, he offered only a simple explanation.  
“Dad, they're showing signs of stress.” He didn't add 'like I said they would'. But Jeff knew it was implied.  
Jeff breathed a slow breath.  
Was he regretting the fourteen-year-old's already expensive marine biology education?  
Right at that moment – perhaps.  
Even so, Jeff's fierce face softened minutely.  
He'd encouraged their independence.  
Yes, Gordon had warned him that the fish might suffer being moved at some speed up and down to the underground hanger, he and Brains had already slowed the speed, twice, for the earnest boy who now stood dripping water on the floor with 19 seemingly healthy fish.  
Jeff sighed, “Okay Gordon, what else do you think these fish...” He coughed significantly, “MY fish need!” He'd been a keen fish keeper for most of his life and was pleased that at least one of his sons loved them too. But Gordon's love had developed into more than a simple interest. Several years back now, Gordon had 'banned' his father from diving for fish off the island's reefs as not ecologically sound. Now Jeff had to buy in his fish from the mainland!  
So yes, they were his fish.  
The boy's gaze didn't waver, he knew exactly what his father had to do for the fish and knew too that his father wasn't going to like it.  
“We can't keep the fish in this tank Dad, it's just too stressful, the vibration alone is enough to put them into a frenzy. You won't see the damage now, it will build slowly within them and as their immune systems start to become jaded, they will develop illnesses – probably not all the same ones, different things which we might never be able to prove are linked – but illnesses that will eventually kill them.” He may well look like a skinny half-drowned rat right at that moment but Jeff had to give Gordon credit for a succinct argument, well thought out and delivered.  
Shrewdly, he studied the boy, knowing there was going to be no avoiding this issue, Gordon had that determined look on his face that Jeff knew from all his boys. The Tracy brothers! Every one of them so different from each other, yet... They all had similarities too that had to be admired, strength of will being the least easy to deal with.  
Finally, Jeff spoke, he'd made the boy wait long enough under his own hard stare. “Okay, so what are you proposing?”  
Gordon had that preplanned too. “Move these to the big tank in the den and...” at this he faltered, all his confidence bleached in a seconds doubt that his father would actually go for his idea.  
But the toy was already on the side of the tank, ready to go into it. clandestinely after his initial rescue of the fish – a fait accompli.  
Now, having to explain it – before the completion – he suddenly wasn't so sure. His eyes darted just fleetingly up towards the toy, almost involuntarily, but his father saw it.  
A Stingray – the 25cm long version – a fully functioning robotic sub, solar-powered for longevity in water, sold as a toy world wide but which more often than not found their way into the fish tanks of older sentimental fans. Such as Jeff who had been brought up on reruns of the classic series, as had his own kids.  
Jeff heard Gordon gulp nervously.  
But he, himself, climbed the step ladder again and picked up the toy.  
“Is this the one I gave John for Christmas a couple of years ago?”  
Gordon nodded, “John's the one who suggested it, he's okay with me using it. He said I could until we found a replacement.”  
Jeff turned it over in his hands a few times, giving him thinking time.  
When he turned back to the boy, he's expression had softened markedly.  
He said nothing, but gently floated the toy on the tank water surface and let it go. Immediately, it began to make circuits of the tank, it's sensor array beginning the task of mapping Stingray's new home so as to travel through every area evenly.  
It pleased Jeff straight away.  
Gordon's shoulders relaxed a little and Stingray settled in.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise a pic to go with the fic later, but I'm still in silly season here and it will have to wait til I have time to relax and draw it :-)


End file.
